Chris Kuzneski - The Hunters

Cobb shook his head. ‘No, but there’s definitely something he’s not telling us, and that makes me uneasy.’

They marched by air compressors and filters, then turned sideways to shuffle along the big main generator, while crouching slightly to avoid the dynamic brake grid and the dynamic brake fan that hung from the ceiling.

‘Why?’ Jasmine wanted to know.

‘Exactly,’ Cobb said. ‘Why would he? I can think of a few reasons, and none of them fill me with confidence.’

‘Anything we should be looking out for?’ she asked.

‘Everything.’

They stopped talking when they had to turn the other way to slide by the main generator and engine turbocharger to finally reach the cab. Thankfully, the fuel tanks, batteries, and compressed air tank were beneath their feet, attached to the underside.

Andrei Dobrev turned his head when the rear door of the cab opened, letting in the roar until Cobb closed it behind him. He smiled, happy to see the leader again. The man who had given him the opportunity to leave his detested semi-retirement. The man who had put this aged but still regal queen back into operation. Dobrev was proud and eager to show off what he called his ‘old dancing partner’.

That is exactly what they were , Cobb thought as they entered the cab. The machine did not, could not, fail to impress. He understood how a boy could fall in love with it and never love anything else equally, ever.

Jasmine took her place on the second of two seats in the small, half-octagonal space that she and Dobrev occupied. It was adjoined by the slightly larger half-rectangular part Cobb stood in. Looking dead ahead out the smallish windshield, he saw more track, more grass, more trees, more hills, and more horizon. From the window to the side, he saw it all speed by.

Dobrev sat in a tall seat with its own suspension system to Cobb’s right: the engineer’s station. Spread before him were the brake, throttle, speedometers, and more than two dozen buttons dealing with systems spread throughout the train.

Jasmine sat in the same sort of seat to Cobb’s left: the fireman’s station. Here there were more controls and indicators, as well as the radio to make sure they didn’t collide with anything and nothing collided with them. There was also a narrow door behind her that led to a toilet.

A minute later, Cobb noticed the terrain outside start to slow noticeably. He glanced at the controls. ‘The throttle is at notch two. That’s pretty slow.’

‘Almost the slowest,’ she replied. ‘The cut-off that we’re looking for is somewhere up ahead. We’ll actually have to leave the train in order to find the switch. You might want to let everyone know that we’ll be stopping frequently. Everyone except Garcia.’

The train squealed loudly — she had a right to, at her age — then hissed steam as she came to a slow stop. Cobb hopped from the engine, then helped Dobrev and Jasmine out.

As she translated, Dobrev said they were at a spot that he had known about for several decades: ‘the dead end’, he had called it.

‘The junction switch was disabled long ago by whoever was leaving,’ Jasmine said.

‘Not the track?’ Cobb asked.

Jasmine asked Dobrev. ‘Not the track, he says.’

Dobrev continued as Jasmine translated.

‘According to lore, the Russian White Army stranded a large faction of the Russian Red Army on the other side, then laid siege. No one has gone back there since. There are rumors of dead lying in the open, deadly munitions hidden by grass.’

Cobb smiled. ‘In other words, disinformation to keep people out. Stronger motive than just having to repair a junction switch.’

‘Exactly,’ she said before she took a moment to explain the theory to Dobrev. ‘He says he likes our explanation better than the traditional one.’

The engine was sitting on the somewhat steep side track that had taken them away from the main line about twenty kilometers back. It was, as Dobrev had promised, a less traveled route. Gone were the villages, waterways, and protective walls. They had left the cow pastures and hay meadows far behind. Now it was just dirt, grass, forests, and hills. At times they couldn’t even see the sky through all the oak and beech trees.

It had taken an engineer of Dobrev’s skill just to get them this far. There were times when even Cobb doubted the wisdom of the move, as Dobrev navigated sharp turns on steep inclines and seemingly impossible declines. Cobb found it only mildly amusing as he heard the others react in his ear as if they were on a roller coaster climbing for a drop — or just coming out of one.

Nearly the entire time Cobb was in the cabin, Dobrev was talking to himself. Even now, outside the train, the old man continued.

‘Anything we need to know?’ Cobb asked.

‘No,’ Jasmine told him quietly, so as not to disturb or embarrass the engineer. ‘Most of it is about trains, about the old days. Some is about his son and the life they all thought they’d have. And some of it is about the coin and the lost glory that was old Romania. He sounds sorry that his father’s bloodline was mingled with his mother’s Russian blood.’

‘Ethnic conflict in your own head,’ Cobb said. ‘Not pretty.’

‘I’ve got that with North and South Korea. I’m a second-generation schizophrenic.’

Cobb smiled. ‘Let me know which side wins.’

She grinned. ‘You know, I get the impression that Andrei is doing more than babbling. He is taking stock of his life at what he knows is a significant juncture.’

‘His life and our train, both diverging. It’s fitting, somehow.’

Back in the command center, Garcia sat amongst his video screens, checking the surrounding woods by satellite. He also used his ‘roof-cam’ to look for any sign of life that wasn’t bird, animal, or insect. Meanwhile, McNutt was crouched on the rear lip of the engine roof, covering Cobb, Dobrev, and Jasmine with a Heckler amp; Koch MP7 submachine gun, complete with sound suppressor and reflex sight.

‘Is there a reason for the firepower?’ Cobb asked him.

McNutt nodded. ‘I’m still worried about Cossacks. Hordes of ‘em.’

Cobb grinned. It wasn’t a big leap of the imagination. This kind of rocky, scrubby terrain — miles from any signs of the modern world — did things to a person’s mind.

Feeling well protected, Cobb turned back to the matter at hand.

Finding the junction switch.

At all the previous junctions, either Dobrev or Jasmine had used the radio to call ahead with instructions for the station controller to throw an electronic switch that would move them onto the various tracks they required. Most of those transfers had been on the main line, to let faster trains pass. Two had been on a parallel track they had used to avoid a bridge. Cobb did not want them on a sixty-meter-high trestle or inside a mountain tunnel if they could avoid it.

Those positions would have been tough to defend.

Since leaving the main line, Dobrev had jumped to the track to pull the old, heavy metal switches himself. As they got deeper into the wild, Dobrev thought it would be best if he had reinforcements, just in case.

Cobb was actually pleased to leave the hot engine for the cool, dry, Romanian autumn weather. They were lucky to be here during the moderate season between the sweltering summer of August and the numbing snows of November. He was also happy to be on solid ground. It was subtle, but the vibration of the train made him feel he was being shaken like a cocktail.

‘So this is Transylvania,’ McNutt said. ‘If I see any fucking bats, I’m blasting them out of the sky. I’m not taking any chances with my blood.’

Jasmine laughed, not sure if he was serious or not.